After Soul Coughing, Doughty finds solo career sweet

Sep. 7, 2006

Mike Doughty contemplates his solo career over a cup of coffee. See how he’s doing Sept. 9 when he plays at John Ascuaga’s Nugget

If you want to go:

Mike Doughty plays at 8 p.m. Sept. 9 in the Celebrity Showroom at John Ascuaga's Nugget. Tickets are $25, available at the Nugget, Tickets.com outlets or (800) 648-1177. Details: 356-3300 or www.janugget.com.

Above: Watch Mike Doughty's video for "Looking at the World From the Bottom of a Well."

Turn the clock back 10 years and you'll find singer Mike Doughty at the front of one of the most interesting bands of the decade. Although not one of the 1990s' most commercially successful bands, Soul Coughing made three albums of avant-garde rock filled with oddball samples, loose jazz grooves and Doughty's stream-of-consciousness lyrics about planes driving into the Chrysler Building, Casio electronics and the band's most recognizable single, 1998's "Circles."

By 2000, Soul Coughing had split and Doughty had developed himself a nasty drug habit, and it seemed that, until 2005, Doughty had disappeared. But he hadn't gone into hiding. He kept a low profile, continued with a solo career, sold his music at live shows, got sober and re-invented himself as a more grounded version of the Doughty of Soul Coughing. His solo work was re-issued in 2005 on Dave Matthews' ATO Records, he released a new album, "Haughty Melodic," that same year and he plays a show Sept. 9 at John Ascuaga's Nugget.

Doughty (pronounced "doe-dee") explained the perceived absence while accompanying his actress girlfriend on a job in Connecticut.

"I was certainly enjoying being a solo guy," Doughty said. "It was very rewarding. It was a very simplified life, just jumping into a car with a guitar after having a bunch of musicians and a crew and an associated production involved."

At the start of the millenium, Doughty toured solo in a rental car, playing gigs around the country. He had never released a solo album, but noticed that his fans knew his solo songs, which had been leaked online. Doughty then released "Skittish," which he recorded in 1995, on his own. But with its availability limited, Doughty played in relative obscurity. That changed when Matthews got involved.

"He's been a supporter of mine for a bunch of years and he wanted to put out the record. That's what talked me into coming back to the label world."

Doughty's solo work, while certainly recognizable as the guy who wrote Soul Coughing songs, highlights Doughty's new positive perspective on life, his yearning for love and a desire to understand spirituality, as in songs like "His Truth is Marching On," where Doughty pleads, "I trust the hand of the Almighty and infinite, help me see your infinity and my finiteness."

"I used to get stoned a lot, and now I don't," Doughty explained of his writing then and his writing now. "That's a very earthy explanation, I guess. I was wasted. You write differently when you're wasted. Also, I've gotten older. Things change. You kinda chill out."

Still, Doughty laughs when telling his stories during the interview, and his music isn't devoid of the smart-ass charm that Soul Coughing extracted from him. On his latest album, "Busting up a Starbucks" name-checks the ubiquitous coffee chain and a desire to, possibly, take one's anger out on one.

"The song is about the futility of breaking things when you're angry," Doughty explains. "Everybody interpreted it as inciting people to riot, which Starbucks did too, only they were kind of cool about it."

Starbucks took the high road and quoted one of Doughty's lyrics about god on its coffee cups.

"They took the quote as a means of saying, 'OK, we're cool with it and we forgive you,'" Doughty explained. "I was like, 'alright, thank you very much, Starbucks.' I think if the song had been 'Busting Up a Wal-Mart' they wouldn't have been very cool about it."

Lately, Doughty has found new fans that are unaware of his past, which suits him just fine.

"It's interesting. The music's been on a couple TV shows ("Veronica Mars, "Grey's Anatomy"), but they're shows that I never watched. I have a MySpace page, and all the messages there are the people who have watched those shows. I don't think any of them are aware of Soul Coughing -- maybe dimly aware. It's nice not to have the burden of your past when somebody's listening to you."

That doesn't mean Doughty's abandoned his past. In his live shows he still plays Soul Coughing songs like "Janine," "True Dreams of Wichita" and "Circles." And his tour over the last year has featured a full band. For the Nugget show, Doughty will play with just keys player John Kirby.

"I love the way he plays and I wanted to get out on the road and basically just listen to him on stage for an hour and a half every night," Doughty said.

When he's finished, Doughty will get back to work on "Haughty Melodic's" follow-up. Before that, Doughty lamented having to climb back into a rental car for the trip back to New York from Connecticut.

"I always tried to get the small cars. But they're always trying to upgrade you. I'm like, 'I really don't want the upgrade, I really want the small car, the small one, the SMALL car.' They gave me the Chrysler 300, aka the Bootleg Bentley. It was all they had. I was like, 'Oh god, give me a damn Kia for god's sake.'"